Toyota Kirloskar domestic sales drops 63% in June to 3,866 units

Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) on Wednesday reported 63.53 per cent decline in domestic vehicle sales to 3,866 units in June against 10,603 units in the same month last year. In May this year, the company had sold 1,639 units in the domestic market.
The company did not export units last month while it had dispatched 804 Etios units in in June 2019. With the gradual unlock in several parts of the country since May 2020, the company restarted its factory operations in Bidadi, Karnataka, and subsequently started catering to the pending orders that had accumulated over the past few months, TKM said in a statement.

With demand picking up in the market after lockdown regulations were relaxed, Toyota dealers were able to mostly sell vehicles to customers from their held inventory in May thereby ensuring a lean inventory at the dealership by end of month, the automaker said.

Last month, TKM along with strong support from its dealer partners has been able to keep the retail momentum growing for a second month in a row, hence resulting in 50 per cent reduction in its inventory cost at dealerships as compared to an year ago thereby making dealer operations more efficient, it added.

"With demand gradually coming back in the market and with strong support from our dealer partners as well as the hard work of our SBUs (Strategic Business Units), we have been able to keep up with customer expectations" TKM Senior Vice President Sales and Service Naveen Soni said.

Further, he said that the special financing and buy back offers have also helped bring customers back to dealerships. The company is also seeing a visible growth in online enquiries as well as bookings, he added.

Soni said that with the COVID-19 scenario, the market has been showing a shift towards entry level trims in all products that it sells and therefore it is monitoring such trends and adjusting future production according to market demand.

"Our production side has been helping us ramp output to be able to meet customer requirements. Going forward, we would like to focus on ramping up production while placing the highest priority to the safety and well-being of all stakeholders," he added.